#17 - JRL 6585
Asia Times
December 3, 2002
Putin's tacit strategic agenda
By Ehsan Ahrari

Russia's President Vladimir Putin is clearly showing his frustration with the growing political influence of the United States and its military presence that now reaches the Russian borders with three Baltic States - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, along with Slovenia, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania - invited to join NATO on November 21. But Russia is determined to make the best of a seemingly not very pleasant situation stemming from the intermittent expansion of that alliance, and still seeks avenues to maximize its advantage. It is a tricky maneuver, but Putin is getting very good at it.

To no one's surprise, President George W Bush has adopted a pattern of single-mindedly pursuing America's strategic interests through NATO, yet making sure that it is done by minimizing Russia's irritation and agony, and, more to the point, by keeping Moscow fully engaged. Former president Bill Clinton did exactly that throughout his presidency.

Two Russian presidents, Boris Yeltsin and now Putin, have had little choice but to swallow the bitter pill of accepting the reality of NATO's growing membership. But they have behaved differently. Yeltsin went through tirades in expressing frustrations to Clinton, yet making sure that the latter understood that Russia was trying its best not to act as a sore loser. Clinton, in turn, rebutted almost all arguments that Yeltsin presented, but also made sure that Yeltsin's ego was appropriately massaged in the process.

In the grand chess game of power politics - as Yeltsin knew in previous years, as Putin does now - Russia may no longer be a declining power, since it already hit rock bottom when the Soviet Union imploded, but it still has ways to go before it becomes a rising power. Putin continues to express his skepticism regarding NATO expansion (what Igor Ivanov, Russia's foreign minister, describes as that alliance's "mechanical expansion"), but said that Moscow was not ruling out closer Russia-NATO ties.

Putin is fully aware of the fact that the United States' star continues to rise. While begrudgingly accepting the ascending American power and prestige, Putin is driven by a very elaborate and shrewd agenda, which contains the following elements.

First, he is ensuring that Washington perceives his country as an ally on the issue of fighting transnational terrorism. Toward that end, he has sought to legitimize his government's handling of the hostage crisis of October 23 when a group of Chechens took over a theater in Moscow. Russia decided to use fentanyl - a potent opium-based narcotic - before its special forces conducted an assault. The result was as horrible as it was embarrassing. It caused 115 deaths, including all the hostage-takers. Bush was only too eager to oblige. He pointed out that the responsibility for those deaths should be firmly placed on the hostage-takers, and not on the Russian government.

Second, Putin wanted more than mere acquiescence. He was clearly interested in widening the scope of the war on terrorism by seeking a general Western acceptance of his repeated assertions that the Chechen separatists and transnational terrorism are intertwined. In the aftermath of the October 23 tragedy, no European leader was sticking his neck out by appearing to be endorsing the Russian brutality in ending it. But Prime Minister Tony Blair of Great Britain lived up to the European characterization of him as George Bush's poodle and stated, "A deadly mixture of religious and political fanaticism is being used." He went on to link the Chechen hostage-taking to the terrorist attacks in Bali, and the murder of an American diplomat in Jordan.

The Russian media are also determined to help Putin link the Chechen struggle for independence with global terrorism, and by underscoring the commonality of this threat to Washington and Moscow. Izvestia depicted it as a part of "war of civilizations". Nezavisimeya Gazeta called it a "logical and integral part of the link in the chain of recent world events stretching from New York to Indonesia and Israel" and called for an "immediate military-police-political alliance with the United States and Britain. Just as we did in 1941."

Third, Putin, while still opposing a potential unilateral military action against Iraq in the event that Saddam Hussein resorts to delaying tactics during the UN inspection of his country's weapons of mass destruction facilities, has supported Bush's demands for unfettered inspection. In turn, Bush promised that Russia's interests related to Iraq would not be jeopardized. Considering the fact that Iraq owes Russia billions of dollars in debt, Putin's trepidations about the implications of a "regime change" in Iraq for Russia are quite legitimate.

Finally, Putin took the opportunity of Bush's short visit to Russia and the presence of the international media to fulminate about the Saudi and Pakistani role in the global war on terrorism, a controversial topic from the point of view of the United States. He said, "Now, where has Osama bin Laden taken refuge? They say 'somewhere between Afghanistan and Pakistan', thereby implying some sort of knowledge, if not involvement, of the Pakistani government." He also reminded the American president that 14 out of 19 terrorists of the September 11 attacks on the US were Saudi citizens. Together, references to America's important Muslim friends also complement the Russian twirling related to "civilizational war" and its endeavors to underscore the linkages between bin Ladin's al-Qaeda and the Chechen separatists.

It should be understood that Russia is desperate to contain, if not exterminate, the fighting spirit of the Chechen separatists. The September 11 terrorist attacks have conveniently placed the Chechen question in a very positive frame from Russia's viewpoint. But it also knows that American predilections for human rights and rights of self-determination are too intrinsic and powerful to be set aside for long, even in the name of fighting terrorism. Thus, Russia must look for a permanent basis of support, recognizing that the US support related to the Chechen conflict will still witness its own ebb and flow.

As Russia envisions it, the Chechen question is only the tip of a larger Muslim iceberg. Other Muslim states of the Russian federation are watching with rapt attention the unfolding of the Chechen drama. If Chechnya ends up winning its highly coveted freedom, other Muslim states (with a total reported Muslim population of between 16 million to 20 million) might start their own struggle to be free of that federation, a union in the making of which they had no say. What happens then? The Russian leadership cannot bear to think of the answer to that question. That is probably one of the most crucial reasons why Putin is busy developing his elaborate, but not so explicit, and intricate strategic agenda of cooperation with the United States.

Ehsan Ahrari, PhD, is an Alexandria, Virginia, US-based independent strategic analyst.